Page 29 of The Devil You Know
“Coming!” He hurried back to the table where the others were waiting. Linda had made a plate for him, and he took a seat next to Jesse.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to worry you. It’s hard, coming back,” Seth said and looked down. Better to let them think he had a raging case of PTSD than that he might be going slowly mad, assaulted by false memories.
“No harm done.” Brian sounded a bit too chipper. “We’re here for you. Maybe after six years in a hot zone, your brain doesn’t feel safe without a weapon, so it conjured one up for you. Our minds do strange things.”
“Maybe so,” he replied, although he didn’t believe it.
Linda and Jesse steered the conversation back to the drive and the places they’d seen that day.
“I’ve got plans for what we can see in Richmond,” Jesse told them.
“You and Seth can do your own thing once we arrive,” Linda said. “That’s why we’ve got your Hayabusa on the rear rack. We’ll uncouple the truck. There’s a botanical garden and a couple of old mansions I want to see, plus the art museum.”
“And the NASCAR track,” Brian prompted.
“Of course.” Linda patted his arm.
After Seth and Evan cleared the dishes, they went outside. The night had grown cold enough to see their breath.
“Talk to me, bro. You’re scaring me a little. Not scaredofyou. Scaredforyou,” Jesse said.
“I’m scaring me too, so you’ll have to take a number.”
They fell silent, and Jesse waited him out.
“I keep feeling like I came backwrong,” Seth started, not sure how to put his feelings and premonitions into words. “Like the me who went overseas isn’t the same me who’s here now.”
“None of us are the same people we were six years ago,” Jesse replied. “We didn’t change as much because we stayed here. Makes sense you’d feel more of a difference.”
Seth shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. I feel like maybe in a different time and place,Iwas different. But that’s crazy talk.”
Jesse seemed to take him seriously. “Maybe—maybe not. Lots of strange things turn out to be real. I’ll help you figure this out.”
Seth’s surprise at the relief he felt overwhelmed him. “Thank you for believing in me.”
“That’s what brothers are for.”
That night Seth dreamed about the strange hospital room. He’d been hurt a few times in the Army, but this didn’t look like a military facility, and he didn’t remember having been sent to a civilian hospital.
The same sharp-featured “accountant” stared down at him. Seth saw the man’s mouth move, but heard nothing. The man regarded Seth in his hospital bed, but there was no compassion in his eyes. The red stone in his ring caught the light and glowed with an inner fire.
For a moment, Seth felt panic, and then lethargy swept over him, and he plunged back into sleep.
When he dreamed again, Seth was making love to the dark-haired stranger. He took his lover from behind, so he didn’t see the man’s face. Soft waves of chestnut brown hid his features, even when Seth tangled his fingers in his lover’s hair as he thrust hard into his tight channel.
He swore the location was the master bedroom in the RV, but in the dream, it was their space and no one else’s. Seth’s body was clearly on board, and the fantasy left him hard and aching.
Since Seth and Jesse slept in the convertible beds that were part of the living room, the arrangement offered no privacy to jerk off and slake his desire. Seth watched Jesse for a moment to make sure his brother was still asleep, fearing he had made noise in his nightmare that woke the others. When Jesse continued to snore, Seth crept to the bathroom.
Mindful of the trailer’s thin walls, he slicked up his hand with hand cream from the medicine cabinet where his brain swore Astroglide used to sit. Seth pushed his boxer-briefs down his thighs and cupped his balls with his left hand while he tugged on his stiff cock with his right.
Dark brown hair. Hazel eyes. Still can’t make out the rest of his features. Should be able to pick my lover out of a lineup. That wasn’t the first time we’ve made love. We knew too much about what makes the other person fall apart.
“Evan,”he whispered as he came.
* * *
Jesse and Sethheaded into downtown Richmond early the next morning. They drove down Monument Avenue, remarking on the statues that had recently been relocated and the empty spaces left behind. Jesse downloaded a walking tour to his phone, and they explored the area around the Capitol and then the trendy Fan District.
